I mentioned back in April that the Subpop Singles Club was coming back. Well, IT’S BACK. AS IN NOW. This year’s run (”version 3.0″), starting 8/15, will feature 12 monthly discs from the likes of Om, Unnatural Helpers, Tyvek, Black Mountain, Black Lips, Arthur & Yu, Mika Miko, Blues Control, Notwist, plus other as-yet-unannounced artists.

You should really order your subscription IMMEDIATELY, because the club is limited to 1,500, and believe me, Subpop will certainly sell 1,500 of these, and damn quickly, I would imagine.

Merge is releasing the first new material from The Music Tapes (ex-Neutral Milk Hotel) since way back in the 20th Century. Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes comes out 8/19, but you can get a taste of the winsome Elephant Sixyness by enjoying the escapades of the nine-foot metronome in this video for “The Minister of Longitude:”

Our friends over at Friendly Fire tipped us off about the new release from London’s Matthew Thomas Dillon, aka Windmill. Puddle City Racing Lights is out 7/22, but you can pre-order now. Everyone knows I’m a complete sucker for sorta-nasal-and-high lyrical delivery, so I liked this track right off the bat. Kinda Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev/Grandaddy-y…

Arlington, VA’s Rerum Novarum Records sent over news that they have a new release coming out next week (7/8) from SF bizarro folk/rock band The John Francis Impostors. And in advance of that, they’re sprinkling a digital EP across the web, one song at a time. Here’s one of ‘em:

The Catbirdseat July Mix/Podcast has been posted. And to hell with “the jump,” here’s the tracklist right here:

• Let’s Get Started - Frisbie
• Go For The Exit - Boston Spaceships
• Lucy Ferocious - James Ausfahrt
• Gillian Was A Horse - Damien Jurado
• Igloo Glass - Holopaw
• Gift Of Song… - The Lord Dog Bird
• Let My Burden Be - Golden Shoulders
• Pop I Kras - Bom Bom
• Fortune Teller - Forest Fire
• I Make Windows - Forest Fire
• Slow Motion - Forest Fire

“Acoustic guitarist Ass does a barren cover of the Escape From New York theme.”

But it is, in fact, a pretty damn awesome cover. I want to hear selections from The Thing next please.

Thanks for that, 20 JazzFunkGreats.

“Live Albums Are Dead, and Music Is The Loser”, The Independent 6/27/08

It is time to say farewell to some of the greatest albums ever made, albums that made careers, defined genres, and celebrated the raw power of music. Because the live album, once a rite of passage for every act of substance, is dead.

While you’re at it, you’d might as well see if you can cram the “Compilation Album” into that coffin with it, because you’d have to be HIGH ON SOME AMAZING CRACK to that think anyone is going to plunk down money for a comp in the era of file-sharing and rabid personal playlist making.

On the other hand, the health of the “Remix Album” is reportedly stable.

The Donkeys, who released one of my favorite records of 2006*, have signed with Secretly Canadian/Jagjaguwar’s red-headed stepchild, Dead Oceans. We can expect the Donkey’s new slab of laid-back West Coast pop, Living On The Other Side, on September 9th.

(*Let me put it this way: how many “Favorite Albums Of The Year” do most sites pick? Fifty? A Hundred? I chose *FOUR* in 2006.)

I’m very happy to announce immediate availability of the newest Catbird Records release; it’s Brooklyn’s Forest Fire, returning with their full-length follow-up to last year’s sold-out Psychic Love Star EP.

CBR 015: Forest Fire - Survival
Forest Fire Survival Site | Catbird Records Page | Survival Online Player

Forest Fire have a number of new players on the album, including fellow Brooklynite Sharon Van Etten, and Portland’s Nathan Delffs (Castanets, Shaky Hands). FF still have that old ramshackle, carefree flavor, but the new blood has really helped enrich their sound. Here are my 3 favorite tracks from Survival; “I Make Windows” is a great example of their new, fuller sound, “Slow Motion” is one of their classic live staples, and “Fortune Teller,” which we’ll call ‘the single,’ is, uh, ‘different:’

I know 3 tracks seems like a lot to give away on a new release, but listen up: the release model for Survival is different from anything Catbird’s done before.

• You can buy the CD for $5 from Catbird Records
• You can buy the album digitally from:

• Amazon MP3
• eMusic
• iTunes (soon)
• Napster
• Rhapsody
• Lala
• Amie St

• You can stream and/or download the album from:

• Last.FM
• iMeem
• iLike
• Facebook
• Muxtape
• Myspace
• VIRB
• Bebo
• Fuzz
• Megaupload
• Rapidshare

• And of course, you can also stream and/or download the album in its entirety directly from this Catbird Records page. You can even “Pay What You Want” there (but we both know you’re not going to)

Oh, P.S.– there was one more format that Survival was available in: the newest Catbird creation, the “Giant-Size” CD:

This is a CD with 12″ sleeve and giclee print cover insert (archival inks on 310gsm German etching stock), in limited-edition of 20, for $15.

But don’t get too excited, because these sold out in a matter of minutes. This is exactly why you should sign up for the Mailing List, people.

[M]ore troubling even than the hypocrisy of a few rock stars is the narcissism at the heart of the phenomenon of home remixing–the notion that to take a work of creative expression and make it “ours” is to improve it. It is a colossal mistake to coerce an expression of others into an expression of ourselves. The premise of open-source remixing is that finally we can admire nobody so much as ourselves. But in music, as in all art and love and politics, there is usually more to gain in trying to understand what belongs, uniquely and idiosyncratically and serendipitously, to somebody else.

Boston Spaceships, Bob Pollard’s new band isn’t half bad, actually. Their upcoming album, Brown Submarine, is out 9/9 on Rockathon. Here’s the MP3:

Stream Wolf Parade’s At Mount Zoomer in its entirety, over at Spinner, which is where these streams practically always show up. Love that cover.